By Celeste Raye

Chapter 1:

Gandadirth

“You ready?”

My eyes skimmed around the former plains of my planet in disgust. Dobromia was a ruin of its former self. A planet of Weredragons that was once revered for its warriors, like myself, was now shattered in complete darkness, still unable to grow food.

Our leader had overthrown our D’Karr and brought his human mistress up as our… what did she call it? Queen. The thought of being half under human rule made me feel queasy.

“Hey, Ganda, you ready?” came the deep tones of Tesyduss, my good friend and fellow rebel against Dobromian rule.

“Ecstatically waiting. Suspense is brimming in my veins,” I said easily, my tone rivers of flowing words that bordered somewhere between playful and bored as I raised my wrist to him. “See it?” I teased. “See the brimming?”

Tesyduss raised a brow, and I watched triumphantly as a small smirk crept up the side of his dark lips.

“Oh, you’re funny,” he said.

I grinned but said nothing more, watching him grab a small cloth satchel and pitch it over his arm before leaving the room. We were leaving Dobromia today. The last crew to arrive on the Earth. The last crew that would signal to the rest of the team that we were ready to destroy it.

A good rebellion didn’t happen overnight. It took full cycles upon cycles to plan. Careful outlines of dedicated shifters who were sick of living under the dual ruling of a human female and our dimwitted D'Karr. In truth, I was surprised he expected as much loyalty from us as he did.

We were promised a new ruler since our previous leader was murdered. Yet, we were still here on Dobromia. Dying. Except now we got to starve to death in the pitch blackness that took the place of the sun.

“How many groups have been sent down so far?” I asked and fluttered past Tesyduss just to bother him.

“Ten,” he said quickly. “We’ve got rebel bases all around the west, ready to go as soon as we get there.”

I grinned. “Then we’d better get there soon.”

There was a change in the red shifter’s demeanor suddenly: his fingers flocking through his wild red hair and attempting to push the long mane out of his eyes.

“What is it?” I asked, tense. “I’m fresh out of jokes, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Tesyduss said nervously. “Vesuviun isn’t coming,” he said finally, speaking of my brother.

“See!” I chided. “I knew it was something. It's always something when you give me that look. Why not? What’s his excuse this time?”

He stared at me gravely then, a look unbecoming for the half dragon. I blinked suddenly, and a terrible sinking feeling flooded down my spine and tingled its way through the boning in my wings, making them feel like they were vibrating.

The dark-skinned shifter let out a throaty breath that was long and loud: a protesting sigh that told me he’d lost some kind of bet and had been designated the one to reveal this information to me.

“He died today,” he said quickly.

“Ah,” I said with a click of my tongue. “Well… that’s a damn good excuse.”

“I’m sorry,” Tesyduss offered quietly: dignified.

I swallowed and felt something in me shatter, like a scream that echoed through my insides but refused to come out.

“That’s why we’re doing all this in the first place, right?” I said with a low sigh.

I didn’t know if I was more devastated by the loss of my brother or by another defeat at the hands of our destroyed planet.

In truth, death was becoming easier and easier to swallow these days. Must have been the defeat then.

There had been seventy-five Weredragon deaths since the new D’Karr had taken over. Not one human death—oh no! And no one had successfully managed to infiltrate their planet. This Earth everyone seemed so bent out of shape about.

The women had taken over.

Our new D'Karr was even worse than the one before. Boradrith, our golden-scaled leader who had been overthrown some full cycles ago now, may have been a hard-ass, but at least he wasn't weak. Now we were under rule from the humans, from the wretched Diana to what used to be a great warrior, Kavryiss. Not to mention their spawned half-breed.

“We heard there’s a representative coming from the Earth, some girl–”

I interrupted before Tesyduss could finish. “Another girl!” I said through chattering teeth—the cold making it difficult to speak. “I’m so sick of these… humans!”

“Some girl,” he continued with a laugh, “Coming as a diplomat to make the final treaty. An alliance between the Earth and Dobromia.”

“Yeah, I believe that,” I spat in a tone that showed I did not.

We used to be burdened by the heat from the two suns: the freak of nature that had pounded our planet into a burning sauna—too dry to grow anything. Our food supplies had evaporated, sending us down underground into a series of cool caves.

That was the old problem. As Tesyduss and I flew up out of the pit, we pulled our wings close and glided into the new one.

Above the protection of the Octantis Colony, our underground fortress, I could feel the wind bite my skin like a heavy hit of metal: the breeze and snow unbearably cold. The lava pits created by the busted suns kept us thriving and able to cultivate for only two full cycles. But once they had dried up, we were stuck with an even worse problem. Snow. Cold. Frigid ice. A never-ending winter.

Thanks for that one, D’Karr.

“Who's assigned from our side?” I asked.

The first human to come and ruin everything, Marina, had helped assign diplomats to talk back and forth between Dobromia and the Earth.

“Acottev,” the red shifter said, speaking of a young one-eyed shifter who was sent to endear the humans. Everybody knew that the D’Karr only chose him because his deformity would make him seem less threatening.

“Where?” I asked.

He pointed; a single land rover was the only thing lighting a path in the distance. I used my tail in front of me as a sensor, almost lost to the foggy night.

“Both he and I are red-scaled,” he offered, pulling his cloak tightly to him as we battled against the raging winds.

“Perfect!” I began playfully. “Hope you’ve got your party-banter ready because it looks like you'll be the diplomat today.”

Tesyduss grinned. “Then I guess we'd better get that ship.”

I pulled my wings tight and felt the wind whip through them. Both Tesyduss and I took to the sky and battled the elements until we reached the ship, my wings feeling chapped and wind-bitten by the time we hovered over the metal unit.

Tesyduss landed on the roof of the rover with a loud thump, and I followed quickly behind. I could feel the vehicle slow down under the weight of us. The red shifter clawed into the human-created transport and ripped the roof hatch away from its hinges, tossing it to the side.

I frowned at him as he did this and chided, “We could have used the ship, you know.”

He shrugged and offered me a wry grin before hopping down into the vehicle. I followed quickly and grabbed the first shifter, a diplomat in long white robes, and his eyes went wide at the sight of me.

I wondered if I had a mad look in my eyes as I grabbed his neck and gave it a quick snap to the right before tossing his body limply to the floor. I felt the rover jerk to the right. Obviously, Tesyduss had reached the cockpit.

“Everything okay?” I yelled, and my eyes shot skyward as I waited for the red shifter’s response.

I heard a shout of surprise from the pilot mixed with a dragons cry, and then a loud thud as the vehicle came to a slipping stop.

“I hope you didn’t draw blood,” I said as I watched Tesyduss grab the limp body of a yellow shifter and toss it lazily to the ground, as if it weren’t worth the sore muscles to keep him right-side-up any longer.

“Nope,” he said simply and began undressing the diplomat, shoving his deep arms into the luxe white cloak and pinching the opening in a way that said ‘Hey, look at me!’

“Lookin’ sharp,” I said with raised brows. “I knew you had it in you.”

“That was fast,” he said in return, walking over to the shifter I’d killed and grabbing his robe, struggling to get it off the body’s limp arm.

“What do you expect?” I asked with a shrug, taking the cloak from him and putting it on. “The guy only has one eye.”

“Ugh,” Tesyduss said with a disgusted laugh. “Don’t say it like that. Makes me feel bad.”

We stood there for a moment, looking down at the quick kills we’d just made and the stolen robes that would help us get to the Earth and I could tell Tesyduss had something to say. He looked up at me and seemed to think better of it, shrugging slightly and making his way back to the cockpit.

It didn’t take long before we saw a spaceship waiting in the distance. I breathed hard through my nose and pointed to the light.

“There,” I said. “You ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Tesyduss said like a cliché as he hoisted himself out of the warm ship and up to the roof to the crisp air outside.

I put two fingers to my forehead and offered a ludic salute as he made his exit. I took my time tossing the bodies out of the rover before sitting in the cleaned cockpit, nestling into the strange fabric of the seat and staring ruefully at the human ship just miles ahead of us.

I couldn't understand how everyone kept getting off Dobromia, yet the Earth remained free from infiltration. As far as I was concerned, I was second-in-command of our little rebellion, and if anyone deserved to get off of the darkened rock we used to call Dobromia, it was me.